This is the Sound
by ImpalaLove
Summary: Spoilers for all of season 4 basically. July Prompt Exchange Challenge based on the song "The Sound" by Switchfoot. Some language. A little abstract.


**I wanted to post this month's Prompt Exchange Challenge early so that I can start focusing on my longer story. This is my first "songfic," so hope you enjoy! The song is:**

"The Sound" by Switchfoot **[Prompt sent by ambitiousbutrubbish}**

**Set throughout the events of season 4 (spoilers)**

* * *

**The static comes in slow**

**You can feel it grow**

**Our stream of conscience flows**

**Under the streets below**

It's like he's trying to breathe underwater. Like choking on salt as his lungs expand with something other than the air he so desperately needs. A drowning sensation. And not painless like they tell you it is. It's agony, and it's happened before. He knows the last tendrils of dreaming, can recognize the signs of what used to be and what is now. It's getting easier to feel the way his fingers dig into the sheets, easier to hear his own rasping breath as he rushes back to the surface. Except sometimes he thinks he's been breathing this way for forever. Sometimes he doesn't remember what it means not to drown. But still, even on those days, he wakes up.

It happens now, easier and smoother than usual. There is no terrified inhale, no lurching up from the bed like those first days _(weeks, it was more like weeks)_ back. He thinks maybe he's recovering, if there is such a thing in this case. Just as long as he hasn't woken his brother...

And he hasn't. Sam is still unconscious in the bed next to his, sheets crinkled around his giant limbs as he shifts beneath them, his too-long hair thick with static. Dean sits up slow and looks around. This motel room is nicer than most, but still not much of anything at all. He tries to remember this new-old reality; the one that means he gets a pillow beneath his head again and waking up with skin still attached to bone still attached to muscle. He slides silently from his bed and ducks into the bathroom, stares past the mirror.

**The rivers made of sound**

**Still running underground**

**Runs like a silent flood**

**We run as thick as blood**

Sam knocks seconds later, or maybe it's been a while because he sounds slightly disgruntled at how long Dean's taking, though Dean can tell he's trying not to let it show, so maybe it's more like concern. Sam's stepping lightly these days, pulling words like rabbits from a hat, making sure they're still fluffy and alive before he shows them to the audience. Sam must think Dean is the most faint-hearted of audiences, because his sentences are coated in sugar and an underlying edge of something not completely _Sam_. Dean can hear the difference, even if it's been forty...four months. It's only been four months. He hears a second knock, realizes he hasn't answered the first.

"Out in a minute," he grumbles, turning on the sink and running his hands underneath just so he has something to do. He should've showered but now there's not time, so he just splashes some water on his face and dribbles some onto his hair so it maybe seems like he did. It's not like Sam looks at him that closely anymore anyway. Dean doesn't blame him. It's probably the same reason he avoids the mirror.

**Can you hear it rise up from the ground?**

**Can't drown it out, can you hear it now?**

Sometimes the Impala is too loud.

Dean will never admit this, but sometimes he can't stand the thrum of the engine or the way her tires squeal against asphalt because it sounds too much like the sharpening of tools and ugly taunts and screaming. At least when he's driving he can control it somewhat, but Sam seems far more indifferent to sharp turns than he used to be, so Dean turns the radio up louder and doesn't get the complaints he's half hoping for from the stony figure in the driver's seat.

Dean thinks they must be on a time-sensitive case if Sam's driving this fast but he can't, for the life of him, remember what it is they're supposed to be hunting. He casts a sideways glance at the papers scattered on the dash and sees a headline about missing hearts and animal attacks, so werewolf seems like a pretty good bet but Dean's distracted by the part about the hearts because he wonders if it's possible for a werewolf to steal a heart and leave the owner alive. He wonders if that's what happened to him. It seems like the best explanation.

**This is the sound of a heartbeat**

**This is the sound from the discontented mouths of a haunted nation**

**We are the voice of breaking down**

Guns are still familiar after fort...four months. They still fit perfectly in his hand and he can remember how to load and unload, how to ready, aim, fire. He goes through those same motions now and watches the body fall, twitching and gasping out a last silent breath. The teeth are longer and sharper than he remembers but it's been a while since they've seen a werewolf and the most important part is that silver bullets still work. They definitely do. Dean unloads another one into the furry corpse anyway because this one preferred kids and it nabbed him good on the arm before he could shoot it and he doesn't really need another reason.

It's then that he remembers the young woman sobbing in the corner with the bleeding scratch across her collarbone, and he walks over to her. Sam is already kneeling beside her, pressing a handkerchief against the cut that isn't so bad as he tells her so. She's sniveling and shaking but alive, so Dean's happy with this one even as he thinks about shooting the damn thing one more time just because it'll feel good. The woman gasps when she sees him and he wonders why until he feels the warm trickle of blood that has dripped from his tattered arm down into the palm of his hand.

"I'm okay," he says and he knows he is but it still tastes like a lie for some reason. Sam pushes to his feet and pulls another handkerchief out of nowhere, pressing it against the slash marks on Dean's arm that are deeper than he thought and will probably need stitches (or so Sam tells him so). Dean forgot stitches were even an option because up until a few months ago, he just bled until he died. Sam's saying something about getting the girl to the hospital but Dean's distracted again, watching blood trickle from between his fingers and knowing they'll be far from clean even hours later when the blood's washed away down the sink. He wipes some off onto the leg of his jeans because eventually everything will be stained anyway.

**Can you hear me?**

**This is the sound of the desperation bound by our own collision**

**We are the voice of breaking down**

He's screaming this morning but it's okay because Sam's bed is just a jumble of sheets with nothing in it and it kind of looks the way Dean feels, like a vacant cloud of white that can't even hold a single raindrop. Except Dean's maybe a little different because he can feel some of those raindrops on his cheeks now, pulling at the corners of his eyes without permission. He shakes off the nightmare and washes the taste of blood away with a few swigs from the flask he always keeps on the floor by the bed. The taste of blood is probably gone at this point but he still likes the taste of the whiskey so it's almost gone by the time he remembers this is the last of it and he'll have to be able to drive if he wants to restock before Sam comes back from wherever he went. Dean has a guess as to where that is, but he grabs the keys to the Impala before he can even mumble the word "Ruby."

The liquor store is familiar in a way that most other things in this world haven't been since he got back, and that scares him a little. He takes his time even though he knows exactly what he wants, perusing the aisles aimlessly as he thinks hard about not thinking about anything at all. He tells himself that the lights always flicker in a store as crappy as this but still, Ruby's knife is a welcome pressure against his hip as he finally makes his way to the checkout.

Sam is pacing the room when he gets back and one glare from his little brother tells Dean it was a good idea to hide the liquor under the driver's seat after refilling the flask now tucked inside his jacket. Sam seeing the bottle would only add fuel to the fire already simmering between them lately.

"Sorry I didn't leave a note. But neither did you," Dean says as he starts packing his duffle. Usually Dean pretends he's still sleeping when Sam takes his little early-riser trips, but he's getting tired of the routine and though he won't admit it to himself, he's also somewhat satisfied with the look of panic that flits across Sam's face before he can compose himself. Sam just grunts and starts packing his own bag, not bothering to ask where they're going because he knows Dean has no clue. All Dean wants is movement.

And for his brother to have a hand on his back when he wakes up drowning in his own screams.

But he'll never admit to the second one and one out of the two ain't bad.

**The static comes alive**

**Beneath the broken skies**

**John Perkins said it right**

**Love is the final fight**

Dean tells Sam everything as they lean against the hood of the Impala, beers in hand like it's any other heart-to-heart. He spills his biggest shame and he cries because the phrase is about spilled milk and Dean has a right to cry when it's blood that's been spilled instead. Dean expects Sam to remain silent for a while, and then he expects abandonment in one form or another. Instead he gets understanding reassurances and a squeezing of his shoulder blades as they stand on that empty road with a sky that folds an ugly gray over their heads. It's fitting, Dean thinks.

A few weeks later Dean sits beside his brother on another empty road and spills a little more of his guilt onto the asphalt. He thinks this time for sure, Sam will leave. Or at least finally look at him like the monster he is.

"_They took me off the rack and I tortured souls and I liked it."_

There it is. The big admission. The sentence that leaves no room for speculation on whether or not he's truly off the deep end. He's sure Sam's been wondering, and now there's no doubt about it. But Sam just looks at him. No accusation, no disgust or even fear in those eyes. He just pats Dean on the shoulder again and squeezes hard and it looks like he'll try going in for a hug next so Dean turns away and hops back into the driver's seat with a disbelieving shake of his head and a playful honk for Sam's benefit. But still, Sam just looks at him.

Dean's not sure how he pulls it of, but he waits until they've settled into a motel and Sam's gone to the vending machine for a Coke before he throws up everything in his stomach.

**Let it rise above, rise above**

**There is no song louder than love**

Alistair looks like a broken marionette doll all tressed up and locked in a devil's trap, but he still talks like he's the one holding the strings. Dean thinks maybe that's because he is. It's hard to break forty years of conditioning so he uses some of it, reminds himself about all the options he has when it comes to torture and knives and holy water-filled syringes. At least this time the victim in front of him deserves it.

Alistair is still talking past the salt shoved down his throat though, and Dean wonders why he's even surprised to learn that everything that's happened is his fault.

"_And it is written that the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. As he breaks, so shall it break." _

Dean turns away from the demon and his poisonous words and later wishes he had had the strength to just laugh it off or something because he wakes up in a hospital bed a few days later with tubes shoved down his dented windpipe and unwanted memories of getting his face bashed in.

And then he wishes he'd never woken up in the first place because Cas confirms his worst fears, tells him it's his job to do the hokey pokey and turn the entire damn Apocalypse around. As if he could even move his broken body enough to sock the stupid angel in the face.

Sam comes in later and looks like he hasn't slept in a week (probably hasn't). His eyes are rimmed red and he's in serious need of a shower and even if he looked perfect Dean still wouldn't be able to meet his eyes.

"How you feeling?" Sam asks, and Dean knows he's referring to the physical kind of pain so he says he's fine like usual and Sam rolls his eyes like usual and pulls out some junk food he snuck in. Dean takes it eagerly and starts shoving Twizzlers into his mouth like he thinks they can glue all the shattered pieces back together again. They won't, but at least he gets Sam to crack an amused, if not patronizing smile. At least he can still do that one thing right.

**This is the sound of a heartbeat**

**This is the sound from the discontented mouths of a haunted nation**

**We are the voice of breaking down**

**Can you hear me?**

**This is the sound of the desperation bound by our own collision**

**We are the voice of breaking down, down**

Dean wakes up from another life meant for a person named Dean Smith. It was full of data sheets and quotas and bluetooth, but now he remembers 'Winchester' and 'brother' and 'ghosts are real' and drowning again. Zachariah wants him to remember his role and fill it, but Dean thinks it was nice to forget it all for a little while. Sure he was confused and out of place, but at least he hadn't known why.

Sam and Dean walk out of the office building that isn't theirs together, and Sam won't stop asking questions about this newest angel encounter. As if he still holds out some hope that they're not all dicks. Dean assures him that they are. The Impala looks like the most beautiful thing in the world when they finally find her parked along the street and Dean could just kiss her. So he does, to Sam's half-hearted disgust. Dean can tell his little brother is happy to be back in the passenger seat, even if he doesn't say anything to that regard. Dean is happy too. They don't need words.

Sometimes Dean wishes they used more words, because the happiness disintegrates too soon. Maybe if they had said it all out loud, it would've hung around in the air longer, filling the next motel room. Or at least the interior of the Impala for the ride there. But soon enough, the flood comes again, and this time it's littered with a seemingly uncontrollable destiny that neither of them can outrun. It comes in the form of a prophet named Chuck who is a better drinker than he is a writer, but that doesn't make him any less wrong about the future he sees. Reliving his greatest hits isn't something Dean was planning on doing like...ever, but then people are throwing around words like "Cassie" and "Cold Oak" and "Hell" so he just lets it roll off his shoulders like the floodwater that it is until he finds a way to change their newest nightmare and make Lillith run for the hills. He tries to ignore the fact that it feels like he's only just delaying the inevitable. Pushing back against the Apocalypse doesn't make it any less real or unstoppable. It just means he can keep his head above the water for a little bit longer.

**Let it rise above up from the ground**

**Can't drown it out, can you hear it now?**

John Winchester has another son, and he took him to a baseball game on his birthday.

Dean has so many questions about this John Winchester. He asks none.

**This is the sound of a heartbeat**

**This is the sound from the discontented mouths of a haunted nation**

**We are the voice of breaking down**

Sam packs a better punch than Dean remembers, but then Dean also remembers that it's not the same Sam. It doesn't even really look like him, at least not from the floor where Dean now sits, knocked on his ass by that first punch. Sam's bound to look bigger from this angle, but it's not just that. It's the way his lip curls upward, the way his shoulders tighten, making the veins of his neck bulge and pulse against his skin. Dean gets to his feet to look at him from a different angle, just to make sure this is really his little brother now. It is.

He makes sure the next punch flies from his own fist.

It's a few endless seconds later and Dean wants to believe that he let Sam win because that's the only explanation for why he's lying on the floor again, glass shattered around him and wind knocked out of him. He huffs out a few needed breaths, vision slightly blurred so he doesn't immediately realize what Sam is doing until his fingers are wrapped around Dean's throat, cutting off what little air he had left. Dean's going to black out soon, he knows that. He can see little clouded dots blurring behind his eyes and he thinks Sam should've let go a long time ago because they just needed to fight a little, get it all out of their systems. They just needed to throw a few punches and scream a few curses and then sit on the ground together and look around at the mess they had made and just be glad it was only this one hotel suite and not the entire world. Except Sam's not stopping and that's when Dean realizes that he might actually die, and that Sam might be the one to kill him.

He gasps at the release of pressure he hadn't been expecting, searching for what he imagines will be his brother's guilt-stricken face. What greets him instead is the same expression from before, only now Sam's long-gone puppy dog eyes are marred with an impossible fury, a crippling disgust.

Dean doesn't want to say the words but Sam is moving towards the door and it's the only thing that might stop him.

"_If you walk out that door...don't you ever come back." _

Sam slams the door and Dean watches the flood waters rush back in.

**Can you hear me?**

**This is the sound of the desperation bound by our fallen condition**

**We are the voice of breaking down**

"I'm sorry," Sam whispers, and it sounds like breaking glass. Dean just stares and stares and doesn't say anything until the world lights up around them. It seems like it should be beautiful, the way the room is bathed in white, but they both know what this means, and now there is no stopping it.

"Sammy we should g..." Dean starts to say, but now they're both just staring, dumbfounded, at the monster that's been unleashed. There's a ringing in Dean's ears and he wants to cover them, but his hands are already knotted into the sleeve of Sam's jacket. Pulling, pulling, wishing he could drag his brother away from the end of the world. But there's nowhere to hide because the Devil knocked, and Sam answered.

"He's coming."

**This is the sound**

**This is the sound**

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**Thank you so much for reading! **


End file.
